The other day, I was reading an old "Reader's Digest" magazine when I came across an article that said having friends is the secret to a long and happy life. Friends, the article said, help us cope with the difficulties of life. They also boost our immune system.
Because friends are that valuable, I thought it wise to share with you, my beloved reader, three ways of making friends I learnt from several sources, including Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends & Influence People.
The first is remembering people's names because they are their sweetest word. I can testify that's true from how I felt one evening in 2005 when I was playing soccer with some fellow fourth-formers at Starehe.
As the match went on, one of the fourth-formers, a popular fellow of Indian descent named Michael Mahinda, exclaimed "Thuita!" Hearing him exclaim my name made me feel so honored. It's like I had received a call from the President of the United States.
People's names are indeed their sweetest word. And from what I did one evening in 2015 when I was teaching piano at a school in Nairobi, I realized that making small comments about people's names can help us remember the names.
That evening, I was to begin teaching a cranky boy who was brought to class by a man who didn't look like his father. When the man told me the boy was called Owen, I mentioned an England striker who was called Michael Owen. And that made the boy's name stick in my head.
The second way of making friends is complimenting people when they do something well. I agree that can work because some of my happiest moments these days are when I share a story on this blog and people out there compliment me.
The third way is making people feel important because everybody wants to be appreciated as American businesswoman Mary Kay Ash observed. We can make someone feel important by spending quality time with them or buying them gifts, especially on important occasions like birthdays.
In a nutshell, if we want to win friends, we should remember people's names, compliment them for doing something well and look for ways to make them feel important. Do that to enrich your life with friendships and thank me later.
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RECOMMENDATION: If you've enjoyed this story, you might also enjoy "A Childhood Friend".
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How to Win Friends
A True Story
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